Home From Haiti

Transition home from Haiti has been 36 hours of extremes, loneliness, and sadness. Of all confusing and seemingly glutenous things to do less than a day upon returning, Jed and I attended a David Gray concert in Minneapolis. I’ve waited to see David Gray in concert for nearly 15 years since I first bought his White Ladder CD in 1999 and his music became my comfort in the time of many transitions – from divorce, to new love, to moving across an ocean, and to times of extreme loneliness that I had never encountered before. I would belt out his ballads of love and change from Babylon, and Please Forgive Me, Sail Away, This Year’s Love, and Silver Lining for the minutes in my car and the hours in my apartment. Alone.

I had become so dependent on him writing the lyrics to my life that when I came upon my car on rainy morning in Amsterdam in 2001 and found the windows smashed in and my CD cases mostly in tiny pieces on the street and my driver’s seat, my first thought went to White Ladder as I started searching my car to figure out what was missing. And in a strange twist of fate(or that the Dutch hate David Gray?) every single one of my CDs was either taken or broken except for David Gray.

And more hope than I’ve ever had settled into my heart that day and I didn’t feel alone anymore because his words still comforted me as they always did and made me want to raise my face to the sun and feel the warmth of each new day.

And so we sat last night at the concert. Paying two months salary of an average Haitian for what would be two hours of entertainment for a typical middle class American. This night I looked forward to for months overshadowed by guilt and excess. And the first half of the concert was hard. And I almost found myself dozing during some of David’s most melancholy choruses. But it was during this moments of drifting off that snapshots of Haiti would go through my mind like I was watching a slideshow with David Gray providing the soundtrack to the show. Snap – the ripped red skirt of the little girl I saw on the fist day as she ran with a naked baby in her arms. Snap – the sound and shine of the metal plates at the clinic where we fed the children lunch. Clang Clang Clang. Snap – the little boy urinating into a water bottle that his mother held in the large hospital room shared by 100 patients or more. Snap – the old woman giving the children almonds on the streets of Cite Soliel as they helped their parents collect water. Snap – the sickly and thin goats eating garbage along the road. Snap – the old man living in a house no bigger than our bathroom at home. Snap – the girls cheering for the boys playing soccer. Snap – the gecko in our cold water shower. Snap – the smiles of all of the children. Snap – the boy in the orphanage who told me he could never let go of me.

So many pictures and people that will forever be a part of my heart. I watched this slideshow play out between opening my eyes to watch the joy of the crowd at a concert in Minneapolis and closing them to let each person I touched in Haiti know that I would never forget them. And that I would be back. And then I looked down at my hands in the darkened theater and saw my wrist glowing. The only light in the theater besides the stage. The bracelet the neighborhood boys made for me was made of glow-in-the-dark thread completely unbeknownst to me. There it was, a loud “HAITI” shouting to be seen and heard right in front of me the whole time. Parallel stories playing out not by coincidence. And I whispered to Jed “Do you see it? Do you see IT?” As he grabbed my wrist to touch the light.

And then I knew that we can’t feel guilt for some of the normal we have. But we can all do better to do more and pull our inspiration and comfort from wherever we find it. And if that means I rely on a little musical miracle of grace from David Gray to open my heart even wider to the world, then I’ll spend those hours at his concert in grateful reflection of how much work is yet to be done.

This land belongs to the gullsAnd the gulls to their cryAnd their cry to the wind

And the wind belongs to no-oneThe wind belongs to no-one

I gave my breath to the songTo the song, wasn’t mineNeither of ship nor of seaNeither of glass nor of wine

Leaving this ghost of a roadI’m climbing hand over handToward that pinprick of light

Toward the seed that God sowed

-Gulls, by David Gray

About Tracy

My name is Tracy Morrison and I live in sunny Minnesota. I'm neither British nor a nun - I'm just a Midwesterner with a headache. This is mainly a humor and lifestyle blog that documents the lighter side of parenting. I am an ex-corporate ladder climber turned freelance writer, social media manager, world traveler, and marathon runner. I would love for you to contact me at tracy@sellabitmum.com

I know this feeling, on some lesser level perhaps, of guilt caused by the acceptance of how much we have when there are so many others who do not even have basic needs covered. I serve on the board of a small nonprofit that works to get fresh produce gleaned from local farms to food pantries, shelters, etc. And so when I sit down to eat a meal in my home or out to dinner, I always feel a pang of guilt, knowing there are some families who have far less and like there is still so much work to be done, yet I sit here enjoying whatever meal is before me. It’s hard to reconcile sometimes, but as you point out in the last paragraph, it’s the ability to “pull our inspiration and comfort from where ever we find it”–that is where our energy should lie, not with guilt. I have really been touched by the work you did in Haiti — thank you for sharing so much of it with us.Kristen recently posted..Feminism and the Rest of the Family

I was blown away by all of the images and messages you shared while you were on your trip. I can’t imagine what it would be like to come home after seeing all of that.Jennifer recently posted..31 Days of Pie – French Coconut Pie Recipe

Such an honest and moving post. I’m sure reentry will feel unsettling for a while and that certain aspects of your life and thinking will be forever marked (for good). And really your experience inspires all of us who read about it.Nina recently posted..10 Resources for Writers and Bloggers

Oh, Tracy. This is so perfectly said. Re-entry is so hard. I remember coming home and everything looked so different- the basket of shoes by the door, the running water, and how overwhelmed I was in the grocery. There isn’t a day that goes by that those moments don’t remind me of Haiti. “But we can all do better to do more and pull our inspiration and comfort from wherever we find it.” Beautiful.
Thank you for sharing this journey with us.

Be patient with yourself, sweet Tracy. Re- entry from an experience like you have had ( and I had in Kenya in 1994) is meant to be hard. You are not the same person that you were when you left St. Paul just days ago. Trust that the world will be better for that. Trust that you will figure out how to make it all make sense in time. I am so grateful for your heart, and your willingness to allow others to bear witness to your journey. ❤️❤️❤️kari

I felt the exact same guilt that you did when I returned from my first trip to Haiti and less than a week later was staying at the Ritz in San Francisco on a press trip. The conflict I felt made me determined to return and continue helping in any small way I could.

One of the biggest problems in Haiti is that people come and help and make promises to return but don’t. I can tell that the people you met in Haiti and the work you did while there has grabbed hold of your heart. I have no doubt that you’ll return and when you do, it won’t be out of guilt. It will be out of a true desire to continue the work you started on this trip.

Until then, be patient with yourself. You’re right that we can’t feel guilty about our daily normal but we do because such powerful experiences are life changing. Disrupting our normal with new experiences is how we grow and change.

I love everything about this. Everything. I’m longing to do something, but I don’t know what. The organisation we went to Africa with is still there – waiting …Lady Jennie recently posted..Jesus. Rock Star.

I’ve had this in my feedly for a while now because I want to respond but don’t quite have the words. It’s been two years since I went and I’m still trying to reconcile it all. Recently, one of the little girls I met died of cholera. Once they knew what was wrong they asked for funding and we were able to help all the other sick children, but it just doesn’t feel sufficient. One is too many. Oh Haiti. Haiti is something special.

Welcome

Hi and welcome to Sellabit Mum. My name is Tracy Morrison and I live in sunny Minnesota. I'm neither British nor a nun - I'm just a Midwesterner with a headache. This is mainly a humor and lifestyle blog that documents the lighter side of parenting three girls. I run marathons and love to talk about fitness. We also love to travel and model social good with our family. I am an ex-corporate ladder climber turned writer, social media maven(not really) and ruler of my own little universe(very small). Aren't we all. I would love for you to contact me at tracy@sellabitmum.com